Parliamentary debate on East to West Midlands railway connectivity

DavidGrain · 26 Jun 2019

Neen Sollars said:
I do not have a detailed historic map of the Birmingham rail network, but was watching a You Tube clip of a railtour heading into Brum via eastside and there were disused viaducts branching off all over the place only to end in demolished sections with new buildings on old footings. I think there were numerous connecting chords to various rail companies lines around Brum. There is one close to the pub where the Blues fans drink pre match.

The main viaduct near the centre of Birmingham carries the former Great Western line from Oxford into Birmingham Moor Street Station and then through a tunnel to Birmingham Snow Hill Station. Branching off this line at Bordesley there is a disused viaduct, Actually it would be more correct to say that it was a viaduct that was never used. The original plan was that the line from Oxford would run into the London North Western stations in Curzon Street. However there was a falling out so the GWR built the line to Snow Hill. The LNWR had by this time moved their main Birmingham station from Curzon Street to New Street.

Assuming that you were coming in from the east you would have seen these viaducts on your left. At Proof House Junction there is a viaduct to your right which brings the former Grand Junction line from Liverpool and Manchester into Birmingham. This line is now used mainly for local trains on the Cross City Line and the Walsall line and forms a flyover junction at Proof House. If you look closely the height of the viaduct has been increase by further arches built on top of the original viaduct to make the flyover.

So in fact the only disused viaduct is the viaduct that was never used in the first place.

On your point about Blues fans, Bordesley station now normally only has one 'parly' train per week but the stations does open when the Blues are playing at home. One evening last year I was on Kidderminster station when the announcement of the next train listed the stops and I was surprised to hear Bordesley mentioned as was on the platform departure board. I realised that there must be a match on that night. By coincidence that line also has a station called The Hawthorns where WBA play so when West Brom play Birmingham City they could visit each other by train.

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Neen Sollars · 27 Jun 2019

David, Thank you for the information very interesting. So the viaduct into Curzon Street Station was never completed? Work stopped and what had already been built was just abandoned?

DavidGrain · 27 Jun 2019

Neen Sollars said:
David, Thank you for the information very interesting. So the viaduct into Curzon Street Station was never completed? Work stopped and what had already been built was just abandoned?

Yes that is correct. Some of it has been demolished.

You might be interested in this 1914 diagram. This is a diagram so not geographically accurate or to scale. Curzon Street Goods which was the original Birmingham station is now gone and the new HS2 station will be near there but further south and west. New Street Station is shown as a single station but was in fact two stations, The Midland station was south of the LNWR station with the Midland having running powers. Also the LNWR lines ran under Moor Street Station and it was not until 1987 that platforms were added to the Snow Hill line at Moor Street. The new chords that we are talking about will be on the bottom of the map where the Midland Line (the Camp Hill Line) crosses over the Great Western line.

The Ham · 27 Jun 2019

Neen Sollars said:
Above project would deliver far more bang for buck than HS2, and yes I know HS2 is next door. But this would be an excellent standalone project without HS2 and delivered far more quickly without HS2. During HS2 construction there will be little money for other more worthwhile projects.

In the last three years there's been money spent on HS2, which had been growing.

Likewise the spending on rail enhancements (not maintenance, HS2 or new trains) to the existing network has continued to grow.

View media item 3339

Neen Sollars · 27 Jun 2019

The Ham said:
In the last three years there's been money spent on HS2, which had been growing.

Likewise the spending on rail enhancements (not maintenance, HS2 or new trains) to the existing network has continued to grow.

View media item 3339

Trouble is, spending on HS2 is about to go ballistic.
Spending during CP6 2019 - 2024 is geared to keeping what already exists going in an efficient manner, better and longer trains on better signalled and maintained track. Its all about the "resillience" and punctuality. They are trying to finish what they have already started, and just maintain it and the rest of the network. No new big spending on rail enhancement projects 2019 to 2024, only HS2
The other biggee - East West Rail is to be separately funded somehow.

Bald Rick · 27 Jun 2019

Neen Sollars said:
No new big spending on rail enhancement projects 2019 to 2024, only HS2

There is, plenty.

ivanhoe · 28 Jun 2019

Can we learn from this that when you cut lines , ie the Nuneaton to Coventry line from the Leicester to Nuneaton line, there will inevitably be a huge cost to reinstate. I realise PUG2 was to allow for a tunnel to allow direct running to Platform 1/2 but PUG2 was all about the WCML, as opposed to any East -West Midlands train enhancement.
The proposed “express’ from Derby to Brum via Leicester is only the reinstatement of a service that was running from Nottingham to Brum, which ran in both BR and Central.

In many ways, this document is not as radical as it seems but this is understandable given that West and East Midlands are two different ‘animals’.

Bald Rick · 28 Jun 2019

ivanhoe said:
Can we learn from this that when you cut lines , ie the Nuneaton to Coventry line from the Leicester to Nuneaton line, there will inevitably be a huge cost to reinstate.

What we can learn is that it is impossible to please everybody all the time, and that the benefits of the many (WCML passengers) outweighs the cost to the few (Leicester to Coventry).

james60059 · 28 Jun 2019

Class 170101 said:
Depends on the time of day. 40 minutes seems to be a challenge in rush hour by road.

I've been in a slow moving queue on the M69 between Hinckley and Leicester for about 40 minutes at rush hour. Lets just say challenging is one way of putting it

james60059 · 28 Jun 2019

Looking at a September 2003 timetable for Central Trains (Guide N), the xx:37 from Coventry to Nottingham took just over an hour to Leicester arriving at xx:42, of course back then it only called at 5 stations between the 2 cities. Since then, 2 new stations have been added (Coventry Arena and Bermuda Park) which would also be called at should a service be reinstated.

Stagecoach also now run every 20 minutes between Leicester and Coventry (Route 48) although I believe it takes the best part of 2 hours one way, when back in 2003 you only had the one bus per hour between Coventry and Leicester (Route 157) with Route 57 running between Coventry and Hinckley. There use to be a fast bus between Coventry and Leicester via the M69 but I have no idea if it runs now or not.

si404 · 28 Jun 2019

james60059 said:
of course back then it only called at 5 stations between the 2 cities. Since then, 2 new stations have been added (Coventry Arena and Bermuda Park) which would also be called at should a service be reinstated.

Why would it be an all-stops service? Especially when the proposals that exist call for non- or one-stop service with other services (Cov-Nun, Brum-Leic) stopping at the intermediate stops.

james60059 · 28 Jun 2019

si404 said:
Why would it be an all-stops service? Especially when the proposals that exist call for non- or one-stop service with other services (Cov-Nun, Brum-Leic) stopping at the intermediate stops.

Apologies, I overlooked that bit about the non/one-stop service. Makes sense now :lol:

.

ivanhoe · 28 Jun 2019

Bald Rick said:
What we can learn is that it is impossible to please everybody all the time, and that the benefits of the many (WCML passengers) outweighs the cost to the few (Leicester to Coventry).

I think you’ve missed my point but thanks for the attempted ‘Yorker’

pt_mad · 28 Jun 2019

ivanhoe said:
Can we learn from this that when you cut lines , ie the Nuneaton to Coventry line from the Leicester to Nuneaton line, there will inevitably be a huge cost to reinstate. I realise PUG2 was to allow for a tunnel to allow direct running to Platform 1/2 but PUG2 was all about the WCML, as opposed to any East -West Midlands train enhancement.
The proposed “express’ from Derby to Brum via Leicester is only the reinstatement of a service that was running from Nottingham to Brum, which ran in both BR and Central.

In many ways, this document is not as radical as it seems but this is understandable given that West and East Midlands are two different ‘animals’.

What is PUG2? Thanks.

swt_passenger · 28 Jun 2019

pt_mad said:
What is PUG2? Thanks.

Railtrack’s ill-fated 1998 “Passenger Upgrade 2” to provide Virgin with a dedicated 140 mph west coast mainline using moving block signalling.

londonmidland · 28 Jun 2019

si404 said:
The West Midlands Rail Consortium's proposals have the following services as 2034 aspirations:
2tph Birmingham-Leicester stoppers
2tph Birmingham-Leicester stopping only at Nuneaton
2tph Coventry-Nuneaton stoppers (1 to Leamington Spa)
1tph London-Coventry-Trent Valley (giving a fast Nuneaton-Coventry)
2tph Coventry-Leicester (1tph stopping at Hinckley, 1tph non-stop)

So if I read this right, this proposal is for 6tph (WMR?) departing from Leicester heading West?

At the moment we have two XC services heading west, along with the EMT services up to Wigston Jn, and any freight. Leicester is already quite a bottleneck, with its slow approach speeds from the south/west on the ‘down’ line, that doesn’t help things. Especially when services are running late.

I keep hearing about the Wigston-Syston capacity upgrades, but what exactly will be done and when will works start? I assume additional platform(s) will have to be built to cope with the extra services.

Bald Rick · 28 Jun 2019

ivanhoe said:
I think you’ve missed my point but thanks for the attempted ‘Yorker’

I try to bowl yorkers all the time, rarely with success!

si404 · 28 Jun 2019

londonmidland said:
So if I read this right, this proposal is for 6tph (WMR?) departing from Leicester heading West?

yes. At least 1 would be XC.

And yes, Leicester would be a bottleneck, especially as the wider plan would have more trains than now running north out of Leicester.

thenorthern · 28 Jun 2019

There are several services that were split/withdrawn after the Central Trains franchise was broken up in 2007 such as the Nottingham to Hereford and Lincoln Central to Shrewsbury via Leicester and Birmingham New Street.

Some services between cities in the East and West Midlands are fine such as Birmingham to Derby is fast and frequent however Birmingham to Nottingham is rather slow and the turnaround at Derby adds a lot of time on. Shropshire to the East Midlands is connections by train are not really passenger friendly as it takes a long time and is very expensive. Stoke-on-Trent to the East Midlands is not much better as prior to 2004 there was a direct service nearly ever hour from Manchester to Skegness a journey now which would involve 3 changes.

From my experience though the East Midlands is a very car dependent region where its cities always have a single principal station with a small number of small suburban halts dotted around the suburbs which are served by semi-rural services usually on an infrequent basis.

Also the Government seems to hate the East Midlands.

adrock1976 · 29 Jun 2019

thenorthern said:
There are several services that were split/withdrawn after the Central Trains franchise was broken up in 2007 such as the Nottingham to Hereford and Lincoln Central to Shrewsbury via Leicester and Birmingham New Street.

Some services between cities in the East and West Midlands are fine such as Birmingham to Derby is fast and frequent however Birmingham to Nottingham is rather slow and the turnaround at Derby adds a lot of time on. Shropshire to the East Midlands is connections by train are not really passenger friendly as it takes a long time and is very expensive. Stoke-on-Trent to the East Midlands is not much better as prior to 2004 there was a direct service nearly ever hour from Manchester to Skegness a journey now which would involve 3 changes.

From my experience though the East Midlands is a very car dependent region where its cities always have a single principal station with a small number of small suburban halts dotted around the suburbs which are served by semi-rural services usually on an infrequent basis.

Also the Government seems to hate the East Midlands.

Also for any major projects in the East Midlands Region, if you settle with either Derby, Nottingham, or Leicester, there is a high chance that you would end up upsetting the other two as neither of the trio stands out in terms of population size with them all being broadly similar to each other.

For example, the future High Speed station will be at Toton, which is not far from where the counties of Derbyshire, Nottinghamshire, and Leicestershire all meet. Had the High Speed station been sited at either one of the trio's ex Midland Railway stations, it would have upset the other two.

The Ham · 29 Jun 2019

Neen Sollars said:
Trouble is, spending on HS2 is about to go ballistic.
Spending during CP6 2019 - 2024 is geared to keeping what already exists going in an efficient manner, better and longer trains on better signalled and maintained track. Its all about the "resillience" and punctuality. They are trying to finish what they have already started, and just maintain it and the rest of the network. No new big spending on rail enhancement projects 2019 to 2024, only HS2
The other biggee - East West Rail is to be separately funded somehow.

For the last year (2017/18) that there's figures there was just over £6bn spent on rail enhancements (£4.1bn) and HS2 (£2.1bn).

If we apply this over the next 15 years that's £90bn, that allows £34bn for other rail spending. That's assuming no increases in funding, which could well be the case especially given that we're looking to be carbon neutral by 2050.

Projects like Trans Pennies Upgrade (£3bn) which is set to be done in CP6 (i.e. finished before HS2 phase 1 opens).

The predictions of cuts to the existing network have yet to materialise.

A lot of those who oppose HS2 have a narrative which doesn't fit the reality.

How's the prediction that growth wouldn't be met going?

View media item 3340

DavidGrain · 29 Jun 2019

Looking at the table published by The Ham above, I presume that the 70% increase in the Scotland figure covers both the WCML and the ECML. The point which stood out to me was that the three cities of Leicester, Nottingham and Derby fall between those two main lines which to me would indicate that the Midland Main Line needs to be brought up to a much higher standard with electrification to all of the East Midlands cities.

Oh by the way in my youth I travelled all over the Midlands, East and West, on a Midland Red five shilling, childs day anywhere ticket and this included the Midland Red bus service X68 Birmingham Coventry Leicester which ran every hour. Most of the long distance bus services out of Birmingham seem to have disappeared.

ivanhoe · 29 Jun 2019

Bald Rick said:
I try to bowl yorkers all the time, rarely with success!

Nice one mate. I do get bowled every now and then

Neen Sollars · 29 Jun 2019

The Ham said:
For the last year (2017/18) that there's figures there was just over £6bn spent on rail enhancements (£4.1bn) and HS2 (£2.1bn).

If we apply this over the next 15 years that's £90bn, that allows £34bn for other rail spending. That's assuming no increases in funding, which could well be the case especially given that we're looking to be carbon neutral by 2050.

Projects like Trans Pennies Upgrade (£3bn) which is set to be done in CP6 (i.e. finished before HS2 phase 1 opens).

The predictions of cuts to the existing network have yet to materialise.

A lot of those who oppose HS2 have a narrative which doesn't fit the reality.

How's the prediction that growth wouldn't be met going?

View media item 3340

- Don`t think you should extrapolate such spending going forward, HS2 spending about to spiral
- Scope of Trans Pennine Route Upgrade York- Leeds- Manchester not even agreed with Dept for Transport, to be completed in CP6??
- We do not need cuts to existing network it needs to be enhanced and improved local solutions before vanity HS2
Network Rail struggling to finish what they started, Great Western electrification, CROSSRAIL, Bolton electrification late. The outline plan for CP6 is explicit - maintain and improve what you already have.
There are plenty of worthwhile rail re-instatement and enhancement projects in the West Mids, and the subject of this thread is one of them.

Neen Sollars · 29 Jun 2019

DavidGrain said:
Looking at the table published by The Ham above, I presume that the 70% increase in the Scotland figure covers both the WCML and the ECML. The point which stood out to me was that the three cities of Leicester, Nottingham and Derby fall between those two main lines which to me would indicate that the Midland Main Line needs to be brought up to a much higher standard with electrification to all of the East Midlands cities.

Oh by the way in my youth I travelled all over the Midlands, East and West, on a Midland Red five shilling, childs day anywhere ticket and this included the Midland Red bus service X68 Birmingham Coventry Leicester which ran every hour. Most of the long distance bus services out of Birmingham seem to have disappeared.

Good points re MML, but HS2 and Toton station just maintain the failings you highlight?

edwin_m · 29 Jun 2019

adrock1976 said:
Also for any major projects in the East Midlands Region, if you settle with either Derby, Nottingham, or Leicester, there is a high chance that you would end up upsetting the other two as neither of the trio stands out in terms of population size with them all being broadly similar to each other.

For example, the future High Speed station will be at Toton, which is not far from where the counties of Derbyshire, Nottinghamshire, and Leicestershire all meet. Had the High Speed station been sited at either one of the trio's ex Midland Railway stations, it would have upset the other two.

If you take the populations of the local authority areas this is true. But much of the population of Rushcliffe, Gedling and Broxtowe and even Derbyshire around Long Eaton are part of what most people would regard as the conurbation of Nottingham but outside the city boundary. Derby and Leicester don't "overflow" in that way.

Toton is roughly equidistant between the centres of Derby and Nottingham, on the edge of the Nottingham conurbation but separated from Derby by a distinct rural are, and somewhat further from the centre of Leicester. But in service terms it relevant to Leicester only for services going to the north-east, as London or Birmingham to Leicester is quicker on the existing network than by changing at Toton. Toton has some relevance for London-Derby but not (as discussed above) for Birmingham-Derby. For Nottingham has relevance for all three directions, and one of the HS2 planning documents did recognise that Nottingham was the most important market. Although, as also discussed above and elsewhere, the journey time savings by changing at Toton aren't really enough to supersede the existing lines for people heading for the city centre.

InTheEastMids · 29 Jun 2019

londonmidland said:
I keep hearing about the Wigston-Syston capacity upgrades, but what exactly will be done and when will works start? I assume additional platform(s) will have to be built to cope with the extra services.

If you Google the term, you'll find it mentioned in CP5 EDP updates (might need to look for this beyond NR as they've been removed). Grade separated junction at Wigston, 4-tracking to Syston and additional platforms at Leicester. I don't think there's an public domain info about if/when it might go ahead.

The Ham · 30 Jun 2019

Neen Sollars said:
- Don`t think you should extrapolate such spending going forward, HS2 spending about to spiral

Taking what was spent last year and extending that forwards is a fairly normal way of working out what is likely to happen, however let's look at what had be been allocated to NR to spend during CP6 and it's £48bn, based on the highest maintenance spend on the table provided (£3.1bn) and allowing for a 29% increase that still leaves £28bn for enhancements that's an average of £5.6bn a year, so more than the £4.1 currently. That's in addition to HS2 spending.

- Scope of Trans Pennine Route Upgrade York- Leeds- Manchester not even agreed with Dept for Transport, to be completed in CP6??

That's what the NR documents say, unless you have a source to the contrary.

- We do not need cuts to existing network it needs to be enhanced and improved local solutions before vanity HS2

Where have I said that there would be cuts to the existing network? Anyway why can't we have both? In fact HS2 by removing long distance services from stations like Leeds, Manchester Piccadilly and Birmingham New Street will allow more local services and/or longer trains. Even if (which is unlikely) there's no additional improvements.

It's only a vanity project if there's not a need for our, which is why I asked about rail growth (see below). As if rail growth is meeting the predictions then the project is needed.

Network Rail struggling to finish what they started, Great Western electrification, CROSSRAIL, Bolton electrification late. The outline plan for CP6 is explicit - maintain and improve what you already have.

All of which are schemes which are making improvements to the existing network, which are more expensive to do than comparable works not on the existing network. Which is why a new line, HS2, was proposed as it gives a lot more capacity for the same spend.

There are plenty of worthwhile rail re-instatement and enhancement projects in the West Mids, and the subject of this thread is one of them.

Indeed, however:
- it is reliant on HS2 being built
- it is £3bn and so less than 1 year of current Enhancements costs

You've not answered the question on rail growth. Not that I expect anyone who is opposed to HS2 would, as the predicted growth was for 2.5% growth a year meaning that by opening of Phase 1 it was expected to be about 50% higher than the 2008/09 passenger figures (the last available when HS2 was announced). From the table I posted above is currently 70% for the regions which benefit from HS2 phase 1.

To reach the 100% increase by 2033 that's 1.1% growth a year, including between 2026 and 2033 when there's due to be a lot more trains providing a lot more capacity in the form of HS2 phase 1 services.

thenorthern · 30 Jun 2019

The reliance of intercity services for relatively short distances in the Midlands is something I think could be improved as for example Derby to Leicester is only served by the East Midlands Trains from Sheffield to London, Derby to Chesterfield is only served by long distance CrossCountry/East Midlands Trains services and the majority of the services from Stoke-on-Trent to Stafford are the CrossCountry services to the South West/South Coast. This means that intercity services get overcrowded for a very short period of time when they don't need to be.

adrock1976 said:
Also for any major projects in the East Midlands Region, if you settle with either Derby, Nottingham, or Leicester, there is a high chance that you would end up upsetting the other two as neither of the trio stands out in terms of population size with them all being broadly similar to each other.

For example, the future High Speed station will be at Toton, which is not far from where the counties of Derbyshire, Nottinghamshire, and Leicestershire all meet. Had the High Speed station been sited at either one of the trio's ex Midland Railway stations, it would have upset the other two.

Not just that there is no PTE covering the region which means there is very little coordination between the authorities on transport policy.

Also many towns and cities in the region seem to lack direct links meaning rail travel is unattractive for example Mansfield only has links to Nottingham and Worksop meaning rail travel to many nearby places such as Chesterfield, Sheffield, Newark-on-Trent, Derby and others are not attractive.

Your right about the rivalry I remember when East Midlands Airport was renamed Nottingham East Midlands Airport in 2003 and both Derby and Leicester City councils told residents to use Manchester Airport or Birmingham Airport instead.

edwin_m · 30 Jun 2019

thenorthern said:
The reliance of intercity services for relatively short distances in the Midlands is something I think could be improved as for example Derby to Leicester is only served by the East Midlands Trains from Sheffield to London, Derby to Chesterfield is only served by long distance CrossCountry/East Midlands Trains services and the majority of the services from Stoke-on-Trent to Stafford are the CrossCountry services to the South West/South Coast. This means that intercity services get overcrowded for a very short period of time when they don't need to be.

HS2 will help with some of these by taking passengers between the main centres such as Birmingham-Manchester and Birmingham-Sheffield-Leeds-York-Newcastle. The existing services will probably continue at about the same frequency but will be more targeted at shorter journeys north of Birmingham plus those travelling to/from south of Birmingham (a slightly odd mix I agree) and may make a few more stops.

Derby-Leicester actually makes good sense, because these trains are busiest between Leicester and London so Derby-Leicester passengers can use seats that would otherwise be empty. It's not quite the same as somewhere like Birmingham-Tamworth where short-distance passengers load up a long-distance train on the sector of its journey that is likely to have the most long-distance passengers.

Parliamentary debate on East to West Midlands railway connectivity

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